The Three Sillies (Fall 2019)

Writer/Arranger

Director/Designer

Photos by Roger David Manning

Performance & Production Credits

Producer: Indianapolis Opera

Pianist: Elizabeth Chua

The Young Man: Sebastian Armendariz

The Daughter/The Old Woman: Kathleen Buccleugh

The Mother/The Hotel Manager/The Pond Woman: Katherine Fili

The Father/The Man in the Hotel: Cameron Jackson

Synopsis

A young man visits his beloved’s house for a typical lunch. The plans are thrown off, though, when the father and erstwhile repairman around the house decided to hang a mallet above the doorway. The mother and daughter use rising silly tactics to get the father to agree to put the mallet somewhere else. The young man decides that he’s had enough, and leaves to calm his mind and ice his head, which got bonked repeatedly by the family.

He assumes that no one could be as silly as those three, but quickly finds that silly people are everywhere. He meets an old woman who wants to put her cow up on the roof because it’s a very picky eater, and later a man who doesn’t know how to put on pants, and finally a woman who mistakes a reflection in the water for the real thing. Through his journey, he realizes that everyone reacts to problems in their own way, and what might seem silly to one person may be the best way another person knows how to take care of something. He goes back to the family’s home, and apologizes to his beloved and everyone is happy to see things resolved.

Writing my first opera for elementary school audiences

The Three Sillies was the first opera that I wrote specifically for elementary school audiences. I have experience performing in several tours of outreach programs for this grade level, and I used a lot of my experience performing and directing children’s shows to inform my entire writing process. I based the five scene structure of The Three Sillies from the formula I used in Beatrice & Benedict, and also tried to feature a similar number of arias mixed with duets, trios, and quartets so that the entire group was fully utilized. The music came from a variety of sources, including Purcell, Mozart, Rossini, Beethoven, Strauss, Jr., and Offenbach, among others.

The story, which was suggested by my grandmother, and comes from an English folktale by the same name. It was very important to me that when I received this commission, I didn’t want to write another version of a familiar children’s story; I wanted to go into my own territory. The Three Sillies was a perfect fit, as it allowed for all sorts of hijinks just for the fun of it. It also had perfect structure for how I wanted to create a new opera, and the ability for several singers to play multiple characters, which I loved doing in the past..

This project was a pleasure to put together, especially working with my excellent cast and musical director. Everyone brought great ideas to the table and bought into a very silly and unconventional story.